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Issue essay:

The best way for a society to prepare its young people for leadership in government, industry, or other fields is by instilling in them a sense of cooperation, not competition

While competition can enable society to advance, it is through cooperation between people and organizations that the greatest advances in human history have been made. Instilling a sense of cooperation would better prepare the young of today for their future leadership roles as cooperation allows everyone in society to thrieve and the fact that some problems can only be solved using cooperation. Furthermore lack of cooperation can create conflict between different groups.

Firstly cooperation means that the benefits of future progress will be equitably spread. If society prepared its young by creating a sense of competition then only the lucky few who succeed will share the gains of progress. With cooperation anyone who contributes to achieving progress will share in the benefits. This means that the gains will be spread more evenly, and that everyone can thrive. Furthermore it is often the case that many people contribute to achieving a particular goal, such as inventing a new electronic gadget. It would thus not be fair that the people how benefit from it financially are simply those who happen to bring it to market before anyone else. Hence society would be better off if future leaders possessed a sense of cooperation as this would create a more equitable society.

Another reason why cooperation is preferable to competition is that certain issues can only be solved through cooperation. Many important issues can not be solved via competition. Climate change for example will only be prevented if all nations cooperate with each other. It is only through cooperation that we can create treaties and international laws to ensure that greenhouse gasses will be kept at a safe level. Thus, instilling a sense of cooperation among the young will better prepare them for the challenges that the world of tomorrow will face and hence would be preferable to instilling a sense of competition.

Thirdly while competition occasionally has its place in delivering better outcomes in the market place, such as lower price, it can often lead to the corners being cut and social norms being violated. Competition in the market place for example often force firms to reduce price below a level that can be done without damaging the environment or the local community. If competition is excessively intense it may lead to a firm leaving an area where it had been for many years to a lower cost location. This race to the bottom can devastate a community as it leads to high unemployment and falling living standards. However, if the leaders of industry did not feel the need to compete as viciously then tragic events like these could be avoid. Thus it would be beneficial if we created a sense of cooperation among the young of today to protect against these circumstances.

In conclusion while competition has its place, it is far more important that we instill a sense of cooperation in the young to prepare them for their future leadership roles. As outlined above cooperation means that everyone in society can benefit from future progress, it is often the only way to resolve particular problems, and competition can lead to unintended negative side effects.

Argument essay:

The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station.

"Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this time period, most of the complaints received from viewers were concerned with our station's coverage of weather and local news. In addition, local businesses that used to advertise during our late-night news program have just canceled their advertising contracts with us. Therefore, in order to attract more viewers to the program and to avoid losing any further advertising revenues, we should restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former level."

The author of the memorandum makes the case that in order to attract more viewer to the late-night news program the station aught to devote more time to local news and the weather. The author makes this claim based on the fact that a majority of the complaints that the station receives are about their coverage of local news and the weather. While this line of reasoning may have some merit it is lacking supporting evidence that is needed to properly appraise it. This evidence includes whether the complaints the station receives are representative of views at large, why local businesses discontinued advertising with the station. Furthermore we also need to know the behavior of other advertisers since the station changed its coverage.

The first piece of evidence that we need to evaluate the argument that the manager makes is whether the complaints the station received about its coverage are representative of viewers feelings at large. The text does not make it clear how many complaints the station received or if the number of complaints has changed since the station altered its coverage. It could be the case that the total number of complaints the station got has actually fallen since the station changed its coverage. Furthermore it could be the case that while some viewers are dissatisfied with time devoted to local news and the weather the majority are happy with the station's coverage. If this was the case then we could not conclude that in order to attract more viewer we need to devote more time to local news and whether.

Another issue to consider when analyzing the manager's argument is the reason why local businesses have reduced their advertising spend with the station. The manager uses the fact that local businesses are no longer spending as much on advertising with them to support his argument that the station would increase advertising revenue if it spent more time covering local news and the weather. However, their is no supporting evidence for this in the passage. It could be the case that local businesses have reduced their advertising spend with the station for other reasons such as difficult economic conditions. If another factor was causing local businesses to spend less advertising with the station it would invalidate the argument that advertising revenues would rise if they change the content of the late-night news show.

Thirdly the argument made for decreasing the amount of time spent covering national news is based on the view that this would attract more viewers. However there is little evidence to support this in the memo. The manager assumes that because of the most of the complaints are about the coverage of local news and the weather their is more demand of covering these topics and less for coverage of national news. However their is little reason to suspect this based on the evidence he presents. In order to asses this properly we would need to know if more potential viewer preferred increased coverage of local news relative to national news. If this was the case it would strengthen the author's argument that increased coverage of these areas will lead to more viewer.

In conclusion while the station could potentially increase the number of viewers by devoting more time to local news and the weather, the argument that is made is lacking certain evidence that we would need in order to asses its validity. This includes if complaints the station received are representative of viewers at large as well as the trend in the number of complaints received, if the change in coverage by the station is what engendered local businesses to reduce their advertising spend, and if the demand of local news and weather is greater then the demand for national news.